Copper in sand??

[cashemin44]

I have treated my main tank (as I sure most of you know from all my posts in the past month) with SeaCure. I have now come to realize that my dead coral is absorbing this dissapating copper. Is it true that I can clorox the rock to get rid of the copper? Also will my sand be no good now that I have treated with copper? I'm afraid that if I have to remove all this and do a water change to remove the copper from my water I will cycle my tank again. My LFS has caused me more problems than good with this issue I think. Opinions please!!!!

 

[beth]

No, that is not true. Did you have a FO tank??

 

[scsinet]

Cash,
I replied to your question on this a while back. Since you keep inverts in the tank (which probably answers Beth's question although you've never said whether or not it's a reef), you are going to have a really tough time making that substrate safe again.
Beth may disagree with me and she's a great deal more knowledgeable than I, but I know of no "magic process" that pulls copper out of the substrate in any quick way. The only way it can be done is to keep a copper absorbing media in the filter like Cuprisorb, Polyfilter, or Carbon for a very long time and absorb it as the substrate leeches it. What I don't know is how long this will take. Most people (me included) wouldn't even try it, they'd write off your substrate as "ruined for inverts." I can be sure that it will take so long (we're talking months here) that you might as well tear down your setup, replace all the calerous stuff that you spoke of in your other thread (the coral skeletons, the substrate, all chemical and porous filter media) and start over. Yes, this will be a brand new system and will cycle all over. Sorry dude... but you kinda went down a one way street.
Beth, for your reference, the old thread that this was discussed at is Here

 

[beth]

I agree, a tank exposed to copper must stay FO. If everything is broken down, and exposed rocks and sand are not used, then it will likely be ok to establish a reef tank.

 

[cashemin44]

Been working, just got back on. Thanks for the replys. Well, we do have a FO tank, for now. Since we ass backwards qt'd our shrimp and crabs from the main tank, our QT tank started to cycle. My fiance thinks that something else happened, but 3 weeks with no nitrifying bacteria will cycle a tank. The ammonia never spiked, but our nitrite and nitrate were at high levels. Our fire shrimp became paralyzed, which question #1 is, could he bounce back?
Story goes, 4 days ago, we contacted SeaCure to ask about removal. They made it sound like that their product is not as harmful of a copper treatment as other products are. They said put carbon filters in and in a few days, it'll be fine to put our shrimp and crabs back in. We went overkill of course and used the carbon filters, a poly filter and cuprisorb. Waited two days and put crippled shrimpy back in along with the crabs. The crabs are doing fine. Shrimpy is still moving, a week after showing signs of dying.
One other note, Bob from SeaCure said his product will still be asorbed slightly by the substrate and dead coral rock. As long as I change my carbon filters regularly, it'll be fine for my fish and he even said other inverts in the near future (ex: anemones, sponges)
As far as my plans, the fake stuff looks great for now. I might put a few low light inverts in but being overcautious, I plan to wait 6 months or better. Question #2 do you agree with that?
Question #3 is believe it or not, the Tang shows ich again. Do we attempt a freshwater dip before quarantining him? Do we do a 100% water change on the cyling tank and fill it with display tank water? The nitrite is still present in the current QT tank water. Display tank water is 0 except for a .30 nitrate. Funny, we did a water change last week.
Question #4 Hyposalinity will take 3 weeks +, correct? If the problem before happened by filling our QT tank with display water, 3 weeks past and we had a cycling tank with unacceptable levels. Why is this going to be okay to treat with hyposalinity and risk our levels going out of control? Water changes every week with the QT tank didn't work the first time around.
Remember, it's our Whiteface Tang who's gettin ichy, hehe. Thanks folks for all your advice so far. Please post some more suggestions. It's greatly apprieciated.